eMOLT Update 2023-09-08

This week, eMOLT entered a new fishery, thanks to support from the Cooperative Research Branch at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. Lontime CRB partner the F/V Bookie, a tilefish longliner fishing out of Long Island joined the eMOLT fleet on Thursday. Jack from the Study Fleet program and George met with Captain Rob at Goodison Shipyard in Rhode Island to install the new system. We look forward to having some new temperature profiles from the shelf break south of Long Island.

f/v Bookie on blocks in the yard

JiM got time this past week to work on a new satellite-tracked surface drifter design. After testing the prototype Falmouth Harbor (see photos), he found more ballast needed below the foam-filled mast. The objective in this buoyless case, as in all previous designs, is to minimize windage, maintain oceanographic standards in approximate size/shape, minimizes dangers to both mariners and wildlife, and experiment with new more eco-friendly low-cost materials. drifter on dock drifter in water

George also worked up some new, more detailed data products for an interested captain including 3D plots of gear tows, and trip by trip summaries of bottom temperatures. If you’re interested in a more detailed look at the bottom data collected on your vessel beyond just what we can produce on the deckboxes, please feel free to reach out by phone, text, or email. You collect the data, and we want to make it useful for you.

example 3d plot

Cape Cod Bay Dissolved Oxygen Snapshot

Some areas of low DO showed up in central and western parts of Cape Cod Bay this week, although the very low DO areas observed in the last few weeks off Wellfleet appear to be clearing up.

In news from the north, the DO loggers we’ve deployed with realtime systems in the Gulf of Maine continue to produce readings in the normal range.

screenshot of CCB DO data

Forecasts

NECOFS Bottom Temperature Forecast

NECOFS forecast

MABAY forecast

Doppio Bottom Temperature Forecast

Doppio forecast

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Capt. Rob on the Bookie for taking the time to meet with Jack and George yesterday. It was a sweaty day to be baking on the tarmac, but we appreciate you saving us the drive down to Long Island.

A big thanks also to Huanxin who mailed the final deckboxes for our 2024 Gulf of Maine expansion up to our colleagues at the Lobster Institute, built the deckbox for the F/V Bookie, and made some upgrades to the deckbox software this week.

Announcements

  • In other weather news, Hurricane Lee is building strength ESE of Puerto Rico. The official NOAA forecast expects the storm to be between the Bahamas and Bermuda by the middle of next week.

official NOAA NHC forecast

Models run in the Global Ensemble Prediction System (GEPS) – longer time series and less certain – show a range of possible tracks for later in the week. Most seem to put the storm east of Cape Cod, but a few models have the storm grazing the Cape.

Tropical Tidbits GEPS model outputs

  • The next meeting of the New England Fisheries Management Council will be September 25-28 in Plymouth, MA.

  • Saildrone is operating two Uncrewed Surface Vessels in the eastern third of the Gulf of Maine to collect high resolution bathymetric data from August 28 - October 18. Coordinates by date and contact information can be found here

All the best, George and JiM